


Words Can't Explain How Safety Never Fails

by TwixxCatt



Series: Superhero Soul Songs [9]
Category: DC Animated Universe, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-19
Updated: 2017-11-19
Packaged: 2019-02-04 07:07:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12765744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwixxCatt/pseuds/TwixxCatt
Summary: This one is a bit different, and I'm sorry if it seems rushed, but I had to get the idea down before it left. Please if you like it, let me know so I can write it better.





	Words Can't Explain How Safety Never Fails

**Author's Note:**

> This one is a bit different, and I'm sorry if it seems rushed, but I had to get the idea down before it left. Please if you like it, let me know so I can write it better.

Jason Todd is born with a song that calls out for knowledge. It whispers of secrets he wants to know and chimes with the facts he gathers from the few books his parents have. 

His dad dies and a desire to protect is thrown over his old melody, it settles itself so loudly that no one who hasn't heard his song before knows of his love of learning. He tries so hard to keep his mother alive, but you can't save someone who won't save them self. 

His soul is broken, that's the only way he can explain how quiet his song is, only he can hear it. Which helps him when he has to steal food, or medicine, but people think he's odd. Some of the children he tries to help feed say they can hear it, their moms say the same, and one woman tells him “Your song is beautiful, we know you will try to help us, to protect us, and that makes you better than even Batman” 

Batman, that name, he hears it all the time. The Batman, protector of Gotham. Jason knows if he could help Batman, like his sidekick did (and still occasionally does) before he left, then he could protect those women and children for real. 

So, when he sees Batman's car, he tries to steal his tires. Batman doesn't hear his song, no one does at first, and he's suprised by this scrawny street kid who got through his defences and already has a tire off. And Jason explains, in blunt words, about that he wants to be Batman's sidekick. He won't tell him why, even if he becomes a superhero Jay still needs to protect the innocent from any hurt he can, but Batman agrees anyway. 

As Robin having a song that hides is a blessing, he can seek up on the criminals like no one else. But he constantly get faulted for doing his job, for stopping the criminals from hurting the people who need to be protected the most. The hurt and anger build in his song, but so does the desire to learn. He spends days at a time reading in the library. And Alfred quickly becomes his favorite person, telling him factual stories from his acting days, and Jason is enamored with this man. 

His mom is alive. His song surges with the desire to protect, and he runs away to find her, to be with her. He is going to bring her back, to keep her safe. 

It's a trap. All the hurt and anger surges to full volume while he gets beaten, then sorrow weaves it's way in while he watches the clock count down. 

His song is dead, just like him.

Except now it's not, and he's in PAIN, and he's screaming, and even his soul hurts, it hurts SO bad. 

He comes to his senses two days later, and they explain that he is alive. While he learns to live again he trains with them, his soul still sings of learning and he wants to learn all he can, so he learns, he learns to make bombs, and to make death happen, he learns how to build up a resistance to poison. He makes himself someone who can't be stopped, he makes sure that he will be able to protect the people back home when he returns. 

When they tell him that The Joker, the man who killed him, is still alive and running free; when they tell him that Batman has a new sidekick, a new untrained, sidekick, his soul screams of hurt and anger and the desire to protect. This kid is going to DIE just like he did, all because Bruce won't stop a killer for good.  
Jason takes up the killers own old name. He becomes The Red Hood, he becomes an avenging angel, he becomes death. 

He kills and kills and kills, his song still calling out his desire to protect, it pounds under his skin like drums, with the ever incessant want to learn setting a beat that can't be matched. 

He snaps when Batman, when Bruce, stops him from killing The Joker. He just wants to help, to protect, and Bruce won't let him because then Batman would have no purpose. 

He kills some more, never children, never good people, only those who hurt and take and never give or love. 

He finds Roy in the middle of nowhere, about to die at the hands of terrorist, and saves him. He has help from Starfire, the woman who saved his life on her island, and they form a team. 

Life moves on, and he is forced to as well. Starfire goes off on her own, Roy needs time to learn to live, they all agree to meet up again sometime. 

He gets a new team, Artemis, who makes his soul scream with the desire to learn, he wants to know all about her culture, and Bizarro who he NEEDS to keep safe, who he needs to feel loved. 

Eventually they split up too, Artemis leaving to go home, Bizarro going into space to find a home where he can be safe. Jason's soul aches with the loss of his team, both of his teams, and he doesn't know what to do. 

He needs to learn, and he needs to protect, so he goes right back into it. Jumps back into Gotham’s underbelly and starts to clean it up, one deadly confrontation at a time. 

Eventually Bruce gets tired of him, drags him back to the cave to try and make him stop. Jason is ready to fight his way out of there, but then he sees Alfred. Alfred who loves him, who he loves back, and his soul still sings with a loss so profound, a loss like piano coursing through him, and he knows that Alfred is listening, because Alfred always listens, and he agrees to stay.

He stays and he protects. And Roy returns to him with a little kid, and Roy is so lost, and Jay always has wanted to protect others. So he moves Roy and Lian in with him, he keeps them safe while Roy gets back on his feet AGAIN, keeps them safe when Ollie and Cheshire come to call. And a gentle melody winds it's way into his soul, it's the soft flute of love and want, and he knows that he is happy now.

Jason Todd lives to be an old man, with his husband he watches his children grow up, and his grandchildren be born, he mourns the loss of his husband, but joins him a year later. Jason lives with a soul that shouts of learning and protection, that sways with love and loss, and he dies happily of old age.


End file.
